As the width of the metal lines in silicon and other semiconductor devices shrink to 0.30 micron and lower, the thickness of photoresist (PR) required to pattern the metal lines present as conductors needs to decrease substantially to enhance the resolution. Typically, photoresist is applied directly on top of a metal layer to be etched. However, simply decreasing the thickness of photoresist results in insufficient photoresist being present to obtain a correctly shaped metal line following metal etching. While systems of photoresist of at least 1 micron in thickness, and silicon nitride hardmask of about 300 nm in thickness are know, they are not thin enough and do not have the etch selectivity to support 0.2 micron design rule integrated circuit production.